An addition to the BHT, a passage in which Paul talks about coming to know Christ directly within one’s Self, which is the resurrection. (The painting above is “Saint Paul Writing His Epistles,” attributed to Valentin de Boulogne, dated 1618-1620.)
7 Whatever things I gained in the world, any advantages and wealth, all of that I now realize is utterly worthless since I gained Christ.
8 Yes, indeed! All of it! And everything else, I now realize is wholly and entirely empty in comparison to the absolute awesomeness of the direct experiential knowing of Christ, my True Self. For this I have suffered the loss of all things, everything, and I consider it all as nothingness, now that I’ve gained Christ,
9 finding my Self in Christ, and being One. I’m no longer self-righteous in the law, trying to be perfectly virtuous in obedience to rules and regulations, but rather through this direct assurance and certainty of Christ in Me I have found my Self wholly right and accepted in God, through this direct awareness.
10 It is through my knowing Christ, directly through experience, for my Self, that I may know in my Self the ultimate power of this resurrection—which is to commune together in those same sufferings, that same loss of all things, and so be formed to Christ through that same ego death,
11 so that I may attain that same resurrection, a rising again after dying within.
Bryce,
Are you familiar with Foundation for Inner Peace, publishers of A Course In Miracles? Also, I’m curious to know more of your experience stepping back from a the Church. I’ve tried to stay positive about my membership, but lately the only positive element is the sacrament and perhaps singing the hymns. I am paraphrasing from memory, but the well know saying of Jesus that the DSS texts elaborate on (the Gospel of Thomas, IIRC) seems to apply to this “blind guide” malaise: “Heat the truth, after which you’ll be uncomfortable and disbelieving, but then you’ll come to accept this truth and be free from mental constraints” I’m not getting that right but maybe it’s clear. ACIM this week said something like “The Second Coming is when I come to my senses and realize that I am. (A son of god, the Christ )
Hi Robb,
I am familiar with A Course in Miracles, but I have not read it yet. It seems that it was written similarly as the Book of Mormon, in a deep meditative state of consciousness. I think there are many other such texts that are inspiring to many people.
I wrote a bit about my experience with the LDS Church on my About page. I had for many years yearned for deeper experience than I had in the church, a deeper connection to the divine, a more direct experiential understanding of God, but I didn’t find it there. I was frustrated. It’s only when I stepped away and started reading more widely, and practicing more traditional spiritual practices such as meditation, that I began to feel a much deeper spirituality bloom within me. I began to have remarkable mystical experiences of the divine, things I had only read about before. I began to experience the gospel within myself, rather than just thinking and talking about it.
I’m not familiar with the particular DSS quote you reference, but it sounds very much like what I experienced. The “truth” in the gospel left me uncomfortable and unsatisfied. I wanted more. I wanted to know the truth directly, not have someone else tell me about it. And when I experienced the truth directly, it confirmed what I had before known in the gospel, but on a much higher and more universal level. The gospel is true, but not in the way we usually think. In fact, it is beyond all thought. It must be experienced to be truly known (gnosis).
I haven’t written much about the Second Coming yet, but I agree that it is an inner realization, when one comes to discover Christ in themself. They realize directly that they are a Child of God, an inseparable Creation of the Cosmos, eternally at-one in God, the One, the Absolute, just as Jesus so realized. That is the moment when Christ comes, and we see that it is the universal Self. The Byzantine monk Symeon the New Theologian wrote a beautiful poem about this: https://thymindoman.com/2017/10/19/we-awaken-in-christs-body-by-symeon/